Exchange

Like all language, sexuality has many expressions, dialects and modes. Imagine, there are over 3,000 languages on the continent of Africa. Still, everyone is doing the same thing — expressing, communicating, reaching toward.

Language has two elemental forms: monologue and dialogue. In the monologue, the speaker expresses whether or not a listener hears or is even present. The release of energy is the purpose — self-contained, non-relational. When there is another covertly enlisted into experience of the monologist, the result will likely fall along the spectrum from boredom to abuse. The monologist who pretends to be in relationship draws the other to him or her rather than meeting the other midway.

In dialogue, there is an exchange. One person speaks (one kind of offering) and the other listens (another kind of offering). Both positions are alert to slow and fast opportunities for reciprocity. This dialogue is explorative, as people discover more through each other. Dialogue implies and requires connection, to oneself and to other.

Sexuality is a common and unique language, one that cannot be fully expressed or received indiscriminately. Such mutual revelation and deep acceptance is reserved for the communication between beings who feel it irresistible to connect — to reveal the self and agree to the other. Unlike the monologists, those in dialogue move together in a free-flowing give-and-take.

This stream of give-and-take has an organic rhythm that needs to be supported by open gestures of care, acknowledgments of relationship. Sexual exchange is a beautiful overflow of reciprocity that soon settles down into a wider field. Once partners rest into that wider field, the exchange of give-and-take can continue — more gently, more subtly, more reliably — the interstitial correspondence that naturally builds incrementally to the next intensity.

Whether or not a sexual encounter results in the conception of a child, it is beautiful to look at every sexual encounter as having the potential to result in a kind of unique conception — a shared realization, perception, appreciation.